The New Year brings you a great opportunity to change your life for better health and well-being. In preparation for a better life, consider how recovering from loving a sociopath/psychopath is like recovering from addiction. Since the New Year is an opportunity, let’s take the time to focus on recovery.
A good friend of mine is struggling with substance addiction. This addiction is very similar to what many of you face because my friend was highly functioning before the addiction which started at mid-life. Before the addiction, he functioned well and was very productive. There is no obvious reason for my friend to be now at the verge of death from stimulants.
When we recently discussed his addiction, I asked my friend to consider what goes through his mind at the moment he decides that the best thing for him to do with his time is to use speed. I admitted being baffled about why he would make that choice. There are so many other ways he could spend his time and he knows that. He said, “When I don’t use, I feel great”¦ Then I use”¦I am an addict.”
Although I am generally in favor of people identifying their problems, in this case, “I am an addict” seemed like a quick excuse used to avoid really taking responsibility for his choices. After some reflection he did say to me, “You are right, it feels like a compulsion, but I guess it is a choice.”
Maybe you face a similar struggle. Instead of battling addiction, you are battling the love you feel for a sociopath. Just like my friend, even though you feel a compulsion to call the sociopath, you too have a choice to make. You can either choose to spend your time doing things that will bring you health and wellness or you can choose to spend time with that sociopath/psychopath.
During our talk, my friend reflected that he feels empty and bored at the time he chooses to use. The speed is a quick fix for the emptiness and boredom.
Many of you go about your lives just fine, then you end up home alone one day with nothing to do. Feeling bored, it suddenly occurs to you that your best choice is to call that sociopath. At the moment of boredom and emptiness all the pain the person caused you is not accessible to your consciousness. All you think about is the fun you had together. This fun is a marked contrast to the boredom and emptiness you feel in the moment. Since you feel sentimental, you think it is OK to make that call.
If you are waiting to feel repulsion for the sociopath before you disengage, you may be waiting for a very long time. The pleasant memories may always be tied to the love you feel which will be activated when you slow down and give yourself time to think. You have to make a conscious decision to make better choices for yourself. This decision has to be independent of however you feel in the moment. The decision to break away and remain free is a leap of faith in the belief that your future can be better “sociopath free.”
OK so how did you get to this place where you decide your best option is to choose to be with a sociopath/psychopath?
Just like my friend with speed addiction, during the relationship, you gave up on many of the activities that used to be meaningful to you. Also like my friend, you left friends, family members and hobbies behind. Maybe you also now surround yourself with other very dysfunctional people.
Getting free means choosing to spend your time in healthier ways; it means connecting with the love you feel for the friends and family members you abandoned when you chose the sociopath. You have to reconnect to the “you” that existed before this relationship.
You also have to admit that it is very selfish for you to hold on to your love for the sociopath. You likely have people who are counting on you to be a friend, parent or devoted family member. You can’t be there for others who need you as long as you hold on to the sociopath. Stopping then, means thinking of those other people. You do have a duty to them, much more than you have a duty to the sociopath.
You might benefit from combining all your New Year’s resolutions into one: Resolve to live a life of greater physical, psychological and spiritual well-being.
Make a commitment to fill your boredom and emptiness with activities that will build you up and make you healthy. If you are overweight, the CDC says you need an hour of exercise each day. There is a world out there full of fascinating possibilities, you can find them if you try.
Now I’d like to introduce you to a couple of friends who have brought joy, meaning and healing to my family. Each day when we walk and play with our dogs, the dysfunction brought into our lives by a psychopath feels very far away.
Use the comment section below to make your own lists of things you can do in the New Year, rather than wasting your time and precious life energy with a sociopath.
Other articles on addiction to a sociopath:
Ask Dr. Leedom: I am really sick, aren’t i?
How does one ever get over the heartache of being taken by a con artist?
Why is this so hard for us mentally?
A deeper understanding of love, ourselves and the sociopath
Why you can be addicted to a sociopath
I don’t understand why I still care
Oxy — Does your son who’s in prison sometimes attempt to contact you during this time of year for sympathy or support, like asking you to send him a home-cooked meal?
Our weather here in the Midwest (1-1/2 hr. drive from Chicago) has been mixed — snow the other day with cold, then warm, and now rain that could melt the snow or freeze overnight. So no better place to be than inside. Enjoying the company of my well-behaved (for now…LOL) only child who’s out of school for Xmas break now and access to many lovely things — a warm home, great books, correspondence with some family and friends, good food and good support and humor at LF. Ahhh…a good life.
Ox Level 15 sounds like a fun date too me..~!
Dear Recovering,
My son has been in prison (this time for murder) since 1991. He scammed me for years to send him money, visit him etc. but for last two + years I have not been incontact with him, the last words I said to him (I wish I had kept my mouth shut) were that I would be at his parole hearing to ask the parole board to NOT let him out! Me and my big mouth, so he KNOWS I will be there though the parole board will NOT let him know who spoke for or against him, only what their decision is.
I wanted so much to be there in person AND to speak, but I have learned recently that I can’t do it personally, I am still emotionally inivolved enough I sound like a NUT CASE when I talk about it verbally, knowing that SO MUCH depends on him NOT getting out of prison. I learned this this past week, and it really was an emotional blow to my ego, but I realize that I just can’t tell this bizzare tale and make myself sound sane! LOL I’m just not enough of an actress to pull it off.I am okay with that now, and I think I will have great legal representation on it so my guess is that with the victim’s family there and I HOPE AND PRAY THEY WILL BE and with an attorney representing the mother of the inmate (which my attorney says he has NEVER EVEN HEARD OF A FAMILY HIRING AN ATTORNEY TO PROTEST THEIR SON’S RELEAZE!) I think maybe the parole board will sit up and take notice.
I will hire an attorney for every parole hearing he has for the rest of his life or my other sons will, to keep him there as long as possible. The attorney says they CAN keep him there til he dies of old age, but realistically, they will let him out when he gets old and sick, so they don’t have to foot the medical bills and the transportation to hospitals etc. so they will turn him out to go to a shelter and die….how HEARTLESS OF THEM! (tee hee)
OxDrover – By now, I guess your son finally gets the message, but probably still misses the real point about why you are no contact.
As you know from research and books, no matter how much time passes, a N/S can be bold, mentally erasing the past as if they never did a thing wrong and may always feel deserving of support from a parent, other family member or friend.
He wrote a letter to a family friend (a minister) after the attempt on his brother’s life by his ex-cell mate and all of us had gone NC with him (my egg donor did for a while) and told the minister that we were not “real christians” because we did not give him UN-conditional love! LOL That’s almost as funny (but not quite) as henry’s X getting mad cause Henry got him Christmas presents and “made him look bad”! LOL
Yes, they feel that they are ENTITLED to whatever resources we have and that we should extend to them EVERYTHING we are or everything we own no matter how they have used or abused us. It is difficult to get your “head around” expecting others to take your abuse and keep on giving and giving to you because “you are in need.” Sure he is “in need” because the prison system sees him as “just another convict” not the SPECIAL person he is, deserving of SPECIAL TREATMENT.
Well, I too FINALLY see him as just what he is, just another psychopathic convict who is receiving what he deserves, to be kept away from society because he has no conscience and is a danger to society at large.
Sure, he is bright, he could have done a lot of things for teh good of humanity, but he CHOSE to be what he is, he CHOSE to put himself in a place that the LAW would put him in prison for his crimes. He did the crime and he should do the TIME.
I wish more of them were doing more time. Ps commmit about 70% of the VIOLENT crime in the country, while they comprise only about 20% of the convicts. Where ever you live write your legislators and ask them to work for the 3-strikes laws to put people behind bars who commit violent and repeat crimes and never let them out! In the end, it will be cheaper for society as a whole as crime and victimization will go DOWN.
Level 16 – like the phoenix rise from your ashes – get out of jail a reformed man. Claim your passion for classical philosophy even though you never read a book in your life and thanks to forged documents get a place in college. Now your challenge is: seduce a lecturer who will write your college essays for you (+100 pts), have relationships with 5 of your classmates simultaneously without them ever finding out (+200 pts), sound like an obnoxious wannabe intellectual (+100 pts), organise a successful business robbing library books and selling them to fellow students (+0.5 pt) and get your degree in less than 25 years while living off your family and girlfriends (+800 points). If you manage without choking on canteen food or getting flattened by a bookshelf falling on top of you, go straight to level 18.
…oops sorry everyone is serious again….slightly off-beat post on my part
Speaking of video games… who wants to date my Avitar? mine would spent my money playing WOW all day world of war craft tried to get me to play… I would rather not … my life was already a made up fantasy not of my making so… who wants to date an Avitar..? how could you get any faker than that? Oh and his screen names Dorian Gray!!!! what a true narc….. Merry Christmas ! to all the REAL humans ! looking forward to a new year avitar free I mean N/S/P free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dear Henry,
Actually dear, I think you already dated “Bubba!” Didn’t he come to your door the other day in a new truck to try to make your Christmas Merrier?? LOL
IQ the same as his shoe size? Sure sounds like the same guy to me! LOL ROTFLMAO
Thankful for LF. I wanted to drive by the ex house tonight and I’m still safe at home. My gift to me. NO CONTACT.
OxDrover: Thanks for your many posts and posts to me. You are so strong. Have a good Christmas.
Good Night everyone and stay strong.